DIY: Ombre Nails Tutorial

Yes, it’s true: Ombré nails are a super hot look for fall. And while this look may seem expensive and hard to get, let me tell you something: it’s easy to achieve an ombré Nails nail look at home!

Now I have to admit that when I first caught sight of the ombré nail craze, I really didn’t think it was for me. But the more that I see it around town the more I found myself intrigued. So finally I decided that I had to try this hot fall nail trend out for myself! You don’t need a ton of tools to achieve this look on your own at home. Here’s what you’ll need to get started:

A dish towel

2 different nail polish colors

A shiny top coat

A triangle make up sponge

Nail polish remover

A handful of q-tips

When picking your colors, the sky is the limit. Originally I did my own nails in a clementine to raspberry spread – which was gorgeous and subtle in person, but didn’t really show up that well when I tried to photograph it for this tutorial. Ultimately I ended up choosing a frosty lavender and a raspberry pink because I knew that the contrast would show up well – and the finished product actually looks really cool – aka I would totally choose those colors again! So feel free to experiment with different metallics and traditional nail colors, you might really like the effect!

1. To start, spread a towel over your work surface so that you have an easy clean up at the end.
2. Run the sponge under water and then squeeze it out so that it’s still slightly damp. This decreases the amount of nail polish the sponge will soak up.
3. Apply a thick line of your colors starting at the edge of the sponge – yes, they should overlap!
4. Starting with the tip of the sponge at the base of your nail, blot the sponge on your nail several times until you achieve the desired amount of polish across the whole nail. Hint: it’s ok if the polish doesn’t stay in the lines – you can fix it at the end!
5. Once you’ve ombré’d all of your nails, let them dry for a few minutes before applying a shiny top coat.
6. After the top coat dries, use the q-tips and nail polish remover to take of the excess nail polish that accumulated at your cuticle line and on your fingers around your nails.